Epson Stylus Photo PX800FW All-In-One Photo Printer review

Summary

Our Score

9/10

Review Price free/subscription

Making a photo inkjet printer into an all-in-one could be a fairly mundane adaptation, but Epson has decided to use the opportunity for a design rethink in producing the Stylus Photo PX800FW. Although aimed primarily at the six-ink photo enthusiast market, it includes useful business features, such as the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) and CD/DVD tray.

This is an all-in-one machine with attitude, from its low-profile, black exterior to its long, wide touch panel, which hinges out for control. The gentle slope of the black plastic cover rises and falls as you open the ADF in a neat, if slightly creaky, way.
Once open you can load documents for scanning of up to 30 sheets, though Epson quotes a paper weight of 64gsm, which is considerably thinner than anything regularly used in UK offices. If you want to get to the scanner flatbed, the lid is cleverly indented into the printer's top surface to reduce its overall height.

The long, wide control panel ratchets up to display at a variety of angles. At its centre is an 89mm LCD display and around this are predefined touch buttons, which illuminate orange, as required. There are only two physical buttons, for power and the CD tray. Rather than having a separate CD holder you have to locate and slide into the front of the printer, the Stylus Photo PX800FW has a slim grey tray that slides out when you press the CD tray button.

The paper tray, unusually for Epson, slides out from the front, underneath the control panel, and takes up to 120 sheets of very thin paper and up to 20 sheets of glossy photo paper in a separate tray, integrated on top. To the right of the paper tray is a two-slot memory card reader and a PictBridge socket.

At the back are sockets for USB and Ethernet, as well as for phone line and handset, as fax functionality is built in as standard.

WiFi connection is also provided, but the setup routine, which involves a cabled connection to a router, is more complicated than it should be. There's no reason why a wireless enabled all-in-one, particularly one with a good control panel, should be able to detect wireless networks and log itself in to whichever you select. Printers from other manufacturers do this.

The standard bundle of Epson software is provided with this machine, including utilities for CD/DVD printing and printing from the Web. There's also a copy of Abbyy Finereader Sprint for OCR.